Strange Times Are Upon Us
by StarSword-C
Summary: Written for Unofficial Literary Challenge #6: "Gods of Lower Decks in Wintry Timelines" on the STO forums. General Brokosh and his handpicked team of gangsters and mercs are fighting the Breen when technobabble ensues and they're transported to the Sol system in the mid-19th century.
1. Part I

**Strange Times Are Upon Us**

_Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish  
>That's the way we do things, lad, we're making sh*t up as we wish<br>The Klingons and the Romulans pose no threat to us  
>'Cause if we find we're in a bind we just make some sh*t up<em>  
>— Voltaire, "The U.S.S. Make Sh*t Up"<p><em>Federation Department of Temporal Investigations<br>Greenwich, England  
>24 March 2410 Earth Standard<em>

"You have no right to question _me_, Federation _petaQ_!" the auburn-haired, leather-clad Klingon snarled at the white-haired human in a black business suit, slamming a fist into the table and knocking over the pitcher of coffee in the middle. "I'm a member of the Klingon High Council and I have full diplomatic immunity!"

"Lady Ba'wov, I've been in touch with the Klingon embassy already and they've waived your immunity," Special Agent in Charge Gariff Lucsly answered, steepling his fingers calmly as the orangey-bronze Lethean sitting next to the enraged noblewoman grabbed his wife's shoulder and pulled her back into her chair. "We could've done this in an interrogation room and by rights I probably should've done. This conference room is a courtesy."

"Honey, you're not helping," Brokosh muttered to his wife in Chel'tok battle cant. "I've dealt with Fed cops before; let me handle this. SAC Lucsly," he said, switching to English, "if we can't use our diplomatic immunity we're using yours. My wife and I are exercising our rights under Article V, Section 3 of the Articles of Federation."

"The embassy has appointed an attorney for you; he's on his way. But I have here a message from Ambassador Vagh commanding you to answer my questions."

"Ambassador Vagh can go f*ck a goose. Lawyer."

"Look, General, give me a break here," Lucsly tried in a conciliatory tone. "I'm just doing my job. You were involved in a potentially severe temporal incursion on Federation soil. Now, I _think_ you're in the clear because of a predestination paradox, but I have to dot all my 'i's and cross all my 't's, you follow me?"

"_Lawyer!_" Brokosh repeated, more forcefully this time.

The human sighed, shut the cover on his PADD, and walked out of the room. Brokosh heard the lock click shut.

"Why do you demand a lawyer? We have done nothing wrong!"

Brokosh spluttered a mouthful of coffee onto the table and started laughing. "Yeah, that's got nothing to do with it, love. Basic practice with Fed LEOs is _always_ get a lawyer. Guessing you've never been arrested before."

"Obviously not!" she replied with some disdain.

"Well, I have been. Mostly drunk and disorderly but…"

"'But'?"

"Never mind, it was stupid."

"Well, now you've piqued my interest. And it'll take my mind off the potential ramifications of that mess that got us here."

_Chel'tok House Fleet Battlecruiser _HoSbatlh  
><em>Free Haven System, Deferi Sector, Alpha Quadrant<br>16 March 2410 Earth Standard_

"_Rezreth_-class dreadnought still active!" Norigom announced. "Forward shields holding at 72 percent!"

"Helm! Hard to starboard! Take another pass at them!" the small, heavily armored Orion in the captain's chair commanded. Captain Meromi Riyal instinctively braced a foot on the floor against the acceleration.

"_JorwI'Hegh_ and _MajQa'be'_, watch that crossfire," Brokosh ordered from his seat in the tac dome at the back of the bridge. "Meromi, you got two clutches coming in dead ahead."

"I see them. Emergency power to weapons! Lieutenant, fire!" The bridge roared with the (simulated) sound of rapid-fire disruptor pulses blasting from the _Tor'Kaht_-class battlecruiser's pylon cannons, and sickly green energy packets crashed into the pair of _Plesh Brek_s. One fell out of formation, engine nacelles in flames, the other detonated in a blinding white flash as the wedge-shaped flagship streaked past.

The Sixth Fleet was two weeks into an offensive against the _Dok Thak_, a faction of Breen commanded by Thot Hark, to break up a possible alliance with the True Way and put a stop to their raids on trade vessels. Starfleet had provided intelligence from a captured dalsh that the _Dok Thak_ were planning to hit the Bajoran colony Free Haven, so Brokosh had prepared an ambush.

"GuiMon Trag, anytime you feel like joining in—"

"Sorry, General, we got held up! Hitting them astern … now!" A squadron of _D'Kora_-class ships crash-translated from warp, dumping hundreds of missiles into vacuum in the space of seconds.

"Koren! Time to drop the hammer!" Brokosh ordered.

"_Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!_" The _Bortasqu'_, more than double the size of the fleet flagship, shed its cloak and its spinal disruptor cannon smashed into the enemy dreadnought's stern, buckling the shields, but only struck a glancing blow to the hull.

Brokosh couldn't say the same for the Ferengi missile salvo that followed. As the helmsman swerved to miss the expanding debris field that used to be the _Rezreth_-class, the Lethean commented to nobody in particular, "Actually, looks more like a good day for the other guy to die."

"Sir, remaining Breen ships are fleeing," the giant Gorn manning sensors announced.

"Confirmed, Ila'kshath. All units, form up and move to pursue. _HoSbatlh_ to _Rule 25_, we'll take it from here. Thanks for the assist."

"Gotta protect our markets, General. Rule 57, eh?"

"Right, 'Good customers are almost as rare as latinum. Treasure them,'" the mercenary quoted. "True enough. See you 'round the galaxy. Lieutenant! Punch it!" The helmsman obediently rammed the lever home and the battlecruiser rocketed past the light barrier. "Time to overhaul?"

"Six minutes. They have a head start but we're gaining," Meromi said. "They're headed for a metreon gas cloud on the edge of the system, but we'll catch them well short."

"That's _if_ that moron Koren gets her act together," Norigom remarked. "Stupid _jil'kresh_'d be late for her own funeral."

"Forget Koren," Brokosh said. "She who falls behind is left behind, and we've got more than enough firepower between us and three _Negh'Var_s to make short work of what's left."

"_brokoS Sa'_," the half-Klingon at communications said timidly, "you are aware you said that on an open channel?"

An explosion of angry _tlhIngan Hol_ invective came through the speakers in the tac dome and Brokosh quickly muted it. "Yes, I was, as a matter of fact," he replied, the tusked corners of his mouth twisting into an unpleasant smile as the hammerhead-bowed dreadnought went to warp and struggled to catch up.

"She really doesn't like having to work for us mercs, does she?" Norigom commented conversationally.

"You have no honor!" Bekk Tengku roared in a passable imitation of Koren's voice. "No sh*t, Sherlock!" The human and a Nausicaan next to her both burst out laughing and Brokosh started snickering, but it ground to a halt under Meromi's glare.

"We may not pay heed to honor as the Klingons define it," the _HoSbatlh_'s emerald-skinned captain said in an authoritative voice, "but we _will_ show superior officers the respect due their rank. Do I make myself clear?"

There was a pause. "Yes sir," Tengku meekly acquiesced.

Brokosh privately messaged Engineering. "How's it feel to be back in the engine room, love?"

"_qu'!_" Ba'wov sent back in a happy tone. "A fine vacation from the _tlhIngan yejquv_! So much more pleasant fixing reactor controls than arguing over spending cuts! I should do this more often!"

"At least you out here can just _shoot_ your enemies, right, _cha'paroyli'_?"

"Or stab them. Stabbing them is good, too."

Brokosh's exploits in the past year had been good for the House of Chel'tok. They still weren't the richest of Houses, but they had expanded their holdings and improved their income, and unaligned warriors and mercs had flocked to join the house fleet, bringing ships, manpower, and money. And with the deaths of Kidu and Chel'tok at the hands of the Undine and the Iconian, Brokosh and Ba'wov were now the seniormost members.

Brokosh still wasn't comfortable having his wife with him on missions, especially now that she sat on the High Council, but like his duties managing house operations, she couldn't do the politicking all the time without losing her mind. Compared to Klingon internecine squabbles, heading up the Sixth Fleet was child's play.

Meromi's deceptively girlish soprano broke him out of his thoughts. "Sir, we will be at extreme firing range in one min—"

"Missile separation!" Ila'kshath called from his console.

"Full shields forward!" Meromi ordered. "Target the weapon and destroy it!" The sound of cannon fire rumbled through the hull once again as the Breen _Sarr Theln_-class continued firing torpedoes from its chase launcher. Two of the _Chel Grett_s began to reshape their warp fields and slowly flipped backwards, slowing as they did so, and brought their bows to bear.

_Full marks for courage,_ Brokosh thought as the enemy cruisers rapidly closed. He'd always admired the ethos of Breen soldiers, their willingness to sacrifice for the mission, not glory. Not unlike Starfleet, come to think of it. But Starfleet didn't share the Breens' sheer bloody-minded military pragmatism and cold calculation.

He checked the plot again. Meromi's defensive fire was having some effect but by now the _Sarr Theln_ had thirty torpedoes loose. "Network our ECM and point-defense with the _Begh'poQ_ and the _QartaDSa_."

The two _K'Tanco_-class cruisers, the closest ships to the _HoSbatlh_, opened fire. Seventeen torpedoes vanished well short. ECM diverted eight more. Another four exploded mostly harmlessly against the forward shields, the force blunted by the warp field.

One got through. Transphasic mines erupted into space ahead of the _HoSbatlh_ as Meromi screamed, "All hands, brace for impact!"

The bridge shook violently as the armor plate fought to hold off the force of multiple explosions. Bekk Tengku's console exploded, throwing her from her chair screaming. The main viewscreen cracked and went down, and Brokosh could faintly hear the sound of air rushing through the corridor behind him as the blast doors slammed closed, trapping a Klingon crewman on the other side. "Damage report!" Brokosh thundered.

"Hull breaches on command deck and decks three, five, six, and eleven!" Norigom rattled off. "Disruptor Four out! Forward thruster bank out! Forward shields at 32 percent! Cloaking device out! Casualties reported in all sections!"

"Enemy reinforcements detected."

"Goddess," Brokosh said to himself with some admiration, brushing broken glass off his lap. "They suckered me. Pulled the same trick on me I pulled on them." The odds were now close to even.

"Enemy _Sarr Theln_ still fleeing! They have ceased fire and are dropping to sublight! Escorts are reversing course!"

"Koren to _brokoS Sa'_, get the honorless _petaQpu'_ on that carrier! We can handle the escorts!"

"Godspeed, Captain Koren," Brokosh acknowledged. "Meromi?"

"Yes, sir. Norigom, take the turrets offline; they'll do us no good. Divert their power to the engines. And pull power from life support and put it to the shields."

"You got it, boss!"

"_QarchetvI'_, _MajQa'be'_, and _Satlh'QaH_, we're going after the flagship. Km'prala and Sshamath, cover fire. 202 Wing and C'Risasse, stay on our wing. Crash translate, now!"

"Confirmed, Flag," the Ferasan commanding the _Satlh'QaH_ hissed. Four birds-of-prey and a _Negh'Var_-class battlecruiser swung in behind the _HoSbatlh_, while the rest of the fleet opened fire as their warp fields fell away. Disruptor bolts and torpedoes sleeted into the oncoming Breen cruisers; return fire skittered across the shields.

"Forward shields at twenty-five percent!" Norigom reported. "Sir, we can't keep this up! We've gotta fall out!"

"Divert damage control teams to the cloaking device!" Brokosh ordered.

"What?"

On the screen two pips indicating Breen cruisers went dark. "Get the cloak online! See if we can sneak past."

"Captain," Ila'kshath said suddenly, "there's something wrong. The odds are still against the Breen; they should've kept fleeing."

"They are courageous foes!" the Klingon engineer trying to fix the viewscreen said with glee as the ship jolted again. "Their defeat will bring us much honor!"

"No, there's something else going on, Sergeant. I'm reading a disturbance in subspace on the edge of this micronebula. I think they dropped out of warp because it was more dangerous than—Egg-Bringer!"

Brokosh saw it on his screen. It was like a rip opening in space. "Meromi, get us out of here! Ila'kshath, what the hell is that?"

"I don't know! It resembles Tyken's Rift but these readings are—"

"Engineering to Bridge!" Ba'wov's voice came through the intercom. "Reading a destabilization in the warp core! We're about to lose containment—I'm shutting it down!"

Then there was a sudden flash behind Brokosh's eyes. The light faded but something felt wrong.

Then he realized what was wrong. The star Sanelar at the center of the Free Haven System was far closer than it had been before, a mere 30 million klicks away, and the rest of his fleet was someplace else. "What just happened? Did we just teleport?"

The Gorn answered, "Still working on it—Egg-Bringer! Breen battleship and cruiser, closing and firing!"

"Take evasive action! Head for the sun—maybe we can lose 'em!"

The battlecruiser wheeled and burned hard for the blindingly bright orb of flame, a pair of crescent-shaped Breen warships in hot pursuit, firing as they went. Disruptor fire streamed from the aft turrets but the enemy cannons were far more powerful. "We're losing rear shields," Norigom grimly announced. "Another minute or so and we're dead." There was a shrieking crack. "And there go the main disruptors."

"Shut down the weapons generators and divert all power to engines," Meromi ordered. "Helm, head for that sunspot formation, the one that looks like a yorel root. And charge up the tractor beam."

"Meromi, what are you doing?" Brokosh asked.

"I'm going to trigger a solar flare. We can't shoot them down, so we'll _burn_ them down."

"Ballsy," the Lethean commented. "And if you get us, too?"

"It's a risk, sir. I believe it's an acceptable one."

Brokosh thought for a moment but then the bridge shook and another red damage indicator on his HUD decided for him. "All right, go for it. Damn. I wanted that targ-f*cker alive."

"Norigom," Meromi said. "Reconfigure the forward and ventral shields for thermal protection. Things are about to get hot."

The huge star filled the sky, washing out Brokosh's viewscreen even though the external cameras had automatically dimmed it. "Warning," the ship's computer intoned. "Exterior temperature at unsafe levels. Warning. Exterior temperature at unsafe levels."

"Turn that blasted thing off!" Brokosh yelled.

"Tractor beam available," the gunner stated.

"Target the sunspots and activate tractor beam."

As the battlecruiser careened across the star's surface, hull beginning to glow cherry-red, a blue glow brushed out from its underside and stroked across the blazing clouds of plasma. There was a bright flash hundreds of kilometers below and an enormous volume of unbelievably hot gas began to rise. "Helm, get us the f*ck out of here! NOW!" The helmsman frantically hammered his board and the star began to fall away.

"This one's gonna be close!"

Behind them there was a pair of flashes, barely visible against the light of the star, and the two Breen capital ships vanished from the plot. The _HoSbatlh_ screamed through space as millions of tons of ionized hydrogen exploded off the surface and blasted into space.

As the star receded into the distance behind them, Meromi ordered, "Put us into a stable orbit. Stop engines." The roar of the exhausted impulse drives quieted and then all that was left was the hum of the life support system.

Brokosh pulled off his HUD visor and stalked into the main bridge. "All right. Somebody tell me what the hell happened back there. That is _not_ Sanelar—it's the wrong color. Sanelar was class K, this thing's a G2V. We've gone at least a dozen light-years."

Ila'kshath waved Brokosh over. "This is what happened. Our weapons fire mixed with the Breens' transphasic weapons, plus with the theta-verteron particles in the vicinity of that micronebula, produced a subspace distortion. A class four quantum singularity."

Brokosh stared blankly up at the Gorn. "Okay, Ila'kshath, remember what I said about technobabble?"

"We accidentally made a wormhole, General."

Brokosh stood there trying to process it. Finally he said, "Targ-sh*t."

"Sir, I don't make the news, I just report it."

"All right, then where the hell are we?"

"Nonessential computer memory's scrambled all to hell," Norigom reported. "I'm starting to restore from backup but it'll take several hours or so. Sensors are showing eight major planets, four of them gas giants, plus one Class M in the habitable zone, plus an assortment of dwarf planets and an asteroid belt between planets four and five."

"All right, set course for the Class M," Meromi ordered. "Any sign of any advanced technology?"

The Gorn shook his head. "Not even any artificial EM signals."

"Landing gear? Can we survive a reentry?"

"Probably," Norigom answered. "Send some guys outside to patch the hull breaches on the underside, no problem."

Brokosh nodded, then his mouth tightened grimly. "Have Vornigar make up a casualty list."

Ba'wov was on the bridge taking a breather with her husband as the blue speck in the distance began to enlarge. The noblewoman's face was streaked with sweat and grease, her leathers tattered and blackened in places, and her green eyes were reddened from the smoke of burnt plastic. "_qeylIs batlh_," she breathed in astonishment as the viewscreen, newly replaced, began to resolve the image of the system's third planet. The shapes of the green-brown continents were unmistakable, known throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, because of the influence of the government that _should_ have been based there.

"Goddess," Brokosh agreed with his wife. "That's Earth. But no Federation. That doesn't make sense."

"Sir," the giant lizard-man interjected as the helmsman brought them into a high orbit, "I think I know what happened. Some wormholes, they don't just travel through space, they travel through time. The Harry Kim Wormhole, for example—the Delta Quadrant terminus is twenty years into the future."

"Are you saying we went back in time?" Brokosh was dumbfounded. "How far?"

"Well, I'm detecting primitive factories and coal-fueled industry, but no sign of electrical activity or radio communications. Sometime in the mid-19th century Earth Standard, perhaps?"

Ba'wov changed the subject. "_loDnal_, we have another problem. The primary dilithium crystals were damaged by the passage. They're decrystallizing. Without them, we can't generate enough power for the warp drive so we can slingshot back to the present."

"So replace them with the spares." He looked at his wife's face, and noticed a worried, sad look on her face. He took her chin in one leathery hand and tilted her head back. "What's wrong, _bang_?"

Ba'wov's mouth was tight as she shook him off. "That cargo bay was breached. They went into space at some point."

"_F*CK!_" Brokosh screamed, putting a fist through the nearest screen and sending a bekk diving for cover. "_F*CKING F*CKED UP F*CK!_"

"Hey! Don't break my ship!" Meromi shouted angrily.

Brokosh struggled to get control of himself and his breathing slowed. He grimly adjusted the collar of his sweater and turned to face his command crew. "Okay. Options."

"I think we can repair the crystals, sir," Ila'kshath offered. "There's a trick a Federation engineer developed in the 2280s involving radiation collected from a wet-navy warship's fission pile."

"Uh, one problem with that, Lizard-Breath," Norigom pointed out, raising a finger. "If I'm right about roughly when we are, I don't think humans even discover radioactivity until decades from now." Everybody turned and stared at the armored yellow-skinned Nausicaan. "What? I'm allowed to read, ain't I?"

Ila'kshath bared her teeth at the Nausicaan and he shied back. "Not a problem. There's uranium and thorium ores all over Earth and they haven't been tapped yet. We can mine it, refine it, and get home in a week."

"Sooner is better," Meromi said. "The longer we stay down there, the more likely we're detected, even if we get the cloak back up."

Brokosh scratched at his chin with one taloned finger, deep in thought. "All right. Ila'kshath, find us a good deposit of radioactives, close to the surface, few people around. Use your discretion. Ba'wov, see if you and Norigom can't get the history files back up, then get cleaned up and replicate yourself some native clothes once we know where we're going."

"Why me?"

"Because we need people who can pass for human without too much trouble."

"Well, why not Meromi?"

"She's green," Norigom pointed out.

**END OF PART ONE**

**Author's Notes:** Cribbing stuff from all over the franchise for this. Tractoring the sun to cause a coronal mass ejection is from DS9: "Shadows and Symbols", while the idea to fix the dilithium crystals with radiation is from _Star Trek IV_, obviously.

And yes, Ila'kshath is a girl Gorn. Like most reptiles, the females are distinguished by being just plain bigger.


	2. Part II

**Part II**

_Near Williamsport, Pennsylvania  
>Earth<br>2 September 1859_

That deer had been through here within the last ten minutes, John Hauser knew. The fifteen-year-old jogged along a game trail through the woods of northern Pennsylvania, tracking dinner. A broken twig here, a footprint in the mud there, the odd pile of scat.

The woods were oddly quiet for a clear September day as he came up on the deer, a yearling buck fifty or so yards away, just getting his first set of antlers, grazing quietly on a patch of clover under an oak tree. Quietly as he could, he unslung the much-loved flintlock longrifle his great-grandfather had fought with in the Revolution and loaded it, tearing the cartridge open and pouring the powder down, followed by the paper and the bullet with the ramrod. Then he added the priming powder to the pan, which was when the dinosaur dropped out of the oak tree.

The deer never knew what hit it.

John Hauser stared uncomprehending as the eight-foot-tall dinosaur, green and scaly with a pale front and a wedge-shaped head, dressed in leather, took the carcass, tore a leg off the deer with little apparent effort, and stuck it in its crocodilian mouth, ripping a strip of meat off. On some strange reptilian instinct, Hauser later supposed, the dinosaur happened to glance up, and saw him. Those big, wide-set yellow eyes fixed on him.

Then the dinosaur gulped back the meat, wiped its mouth on the back of its hand, and in a voice underlaid with hisses and growls said, "Blink, boy. Your eyes are stuck!"

Hauser fainted.

Ila'kshath shrugged and went back to her lunch. "Mammals," she muttered under her breath.

* * *

><p>"That was damn reckless, Ila'kshath," Brokosh growled when the Gorn reported back to the ship.<p>

"I'm not a telepath, sir. He was downwind of me so I couldn't smell him, and I didn't see him until he'd already seen me."

"I believe the general meant you _speaking_ to him," Meromi pointed out.

"Oh, that. Captain, speaking frankly?" The girlish-looking Orion, barely half her science officer's height, waved her on. "Who'd believe it? Seriously, think about it—a giant reptile that talks? He'd be laughed out of the room before he got three words out."

"Lizard-Breath's got a point," Norigom commented. Then noisily fell over when a huge reptilian paw knocked into the back of his head. "What was that for!?"

"For calling me 'Lizard-Breath' again."

Brokosh looked on, bemused, as the two left the bridge arguing. "Why don't those two get a room already," he murmured to Meromi, who snorted in spite of herself. "How are we doing on the thorium?"

"Lady Ba'wov's team finished building a makeshift refinery a couple hours ago and the digging is going well. We'll be out of here in a day or so."

"Any sign we've been detected?"

"No, sir."

"All right. Speaking of Her Ladyship, have you seen her today?"

"She went into town with Sergeant Major K'Gan."

"Ah, good. Hopefully she finds me a newspaper so we can see how much damage that solar flare of yours did."

"It was a coronal mass ejection, sir."

"Same difference. Last I looked, auroras weren't supposed to be visible at this latitude."

* * *

><p>"Bartender! Whiskey!" K'Gan bellowed, slamming a fist into the counter. Ba'wov groaned. The <em>QaS DevwI'<em> of the _HoSbatlh_ had apparently decided that the best way to remain inconspicuous was to be as conspicuous as possible.

Although, granted, it was easier to be inconspicuous when you weren't two meters tall, wearing an eyepatch, and built like a tank. At least he was wearing native clothes and had a rag on his head.

The barman rather nervously handed the Klingon NCO a glass of bourbon and asked, "Will your wife be having anything?"

"Coffee," Ba'wov answered. "And he's not my husband," she added.

The coffee was terrible, and weak compared to the raktajino she usually drank. Ba'wov sipped it grudgingly and looked around the tavern, sizing up the clientele. Mix of workers, but one oddity caught her eye. A pair of men by the unlit fireplace munching on sandwiches, blond, looked like they could be brothers, each with a reddish-brown mammal that looked something like a targ, except sleeker, curled up at his feet, and each with a strange gun attached to his hip.

A noise from K'Gan distracted her. The NCO knocked back his glass of booze and started to order another, but Ba'wov grabbed him and dragged him out of the tavern before he could make any more noise, throwing a coin to the barman.

They emerged onto a boardwalk by a dirt road and Ba'wov irritatedly adjusted her floral bonnet and scratched at the rubber prosthetic on her nose. "Remember what we're here for, K'Gan."

"I'm not allowed to have a little fun?"

"You're not allowed to pollute the timeline any more than you have to. That's an _order_." The larger Klingon growled something unintelligible deep in his throat and Ba'wov spun, grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked, dragging him down into her face. "_You want to repeat that, _petaQ_?_"

"No, milady," he meekly replied.

"Good. Now, let's see about a newsp—" BANG! "What in the name of _qeylIS batlh_ was that?"

"It came from down the street!" The two started running, Ba'wov grabbing up her skirts and swearing continuously as she struggled to keep up. _Which moron's idea was it to make women dress like this? Because when I find out, I'll rip his spleen out._

They came around the corner to see somebody dragging a man with badly burned hands out of a building marked "Western Union Telegraph Company". K'Gan quickly ran up and took the man's other arm. "What happened?"

"Fucking telegraph coil exploded!" the burned man wheezed.

"Here, lay him down on the boardwalk," Ba'wov said, pressing fingers to the man's wrist to take his pulse. "Somebody get, um, ice and a couple of rags!" She heard a thrum from up above and looked up to see sparks flying from the telegraph poles. "_Ql'yah!_"

"What'd you say?" a freckle-faced kid next to her asked.

"Something I shouldn't have," she muttered.

"Yeah, my papa tells me not to swear all the time."

Somebody, a slim dark-skinned man, handed her a rag and a couple chunks of ice and she thanked him, knowing refrigeration was something precious and rare in this time. She wrapped the ice in the rags and pressed it to the telegraph operator's right hand. "Can you get—"

The dark man knelt across from her and started tying the impromptu ice pack to the opposite hand. "Sho' can, Miss, uh—"

"Bowie," she offered her pseudonym. "That's my husband's man Keegan."

"Benjamin Smith," he returned, shaking her free hand.

Ba'wov looked at the telegraph operator. "You ever seen a telegraph do that?"

"No, ma'am," the operator wheezed. "It's been actin' strange for two days. Boston said he and Portland were running with their batteries disconnected." Somebody whistled in disbelief.

"Let's get you inside."

"You're not from around here, are you, Missus Bowie?" Smith asked as they helped the operator into a house. "I ask 'cause I know most of the nee-groes 'round here and you ain't familiar."

"Um, no, we're, uh, passing through." He took her wrist, gently, and led her aside. "What are you doing?"

"You need any help?" he asked quietly. "I know a few guys."

"Take your hands off her," K'Gan growled.

"Mistah Keegan, I knows where you are. You's tryna get to Canada." Ba'wov looked at him incredulously, then burst out laughing. "What?"

"I get it, you think we're, uh"—she looked around—"escaped slaves," she added in a whisper.

"You ain't?"

"No!"

"Oh. Well, good for you."

"You got a newspaper?"

"I got a copy of _The Williamsport Press_ here somewhere."

* * *

><p>"Is the telegraph operator all right?" Brokosh asked.<p>

"First-degree burns on his hands, _broqoS Sa'_," K'Gan answered. "At most he'll be out of work for a couple days."

"Well, this newspaper you found, and that thing you mentioned about the Western Union guy in Boston running without his battery, basically confirms what we've been suspecting. Coronal mass ejection's interfering with whatever electrical tech they've got right now. Aurora borealis way further south than it should be, telegraph interference all over. Our fault."

"Maybe not something we could've avoided, sir," Ila'kshath said. "Norigom got the computers fixed, finally, and there's records of a major solar storm in early September 1859. The humans called it the 'Carrington Event' after one of the astronomers who analyzed it."

"Why were we carrying human historical records, anyway?" Ba'wov asked.

"It seems Bekk Tengku is something of a history buff, _ba'wov joH_," K'Gan explained.

"Wait, back up," Brokosh said, waving a hand. "Are you saying we went back in time and caused a historical event that was going to happen anyway? Had already happened?"

"The technical term, sir, is a 'predestination paradox'," the Gorn confirmed.

The Lethean stood there looking something like a stuffed fish with his mouth hanging partway open for a moment. "K'Gan, is that tavern you and Ba'wov found still open? I think I need a drink."

"Probably, sir," the _QaS DevwI'_ answered with a smile. "But, uh, how are you going to—"

"—explain how I look? I'll tell them I'm a Pacific Islander and I got burned in a fire, or something." He turned to go, then stopped. "Where's Meromi?"

* * *

><p>The woods were dark, and quiet but for the crickets as the barely 147 centimeter emerald-skinned Orion ran through them. She'd eschewed her customary Imperial Honor Guard armor and furs in favor of a simple dark blue synthcloth tank top and cargo pants, practical and functional. Slung across her back, a stripped-down disruptor rifle of Nyberrite manufacture, simple iron sights and manual safety, matte black and unadorned, and enough stopping power to bring down a charging Voth dino.<p>

Tree, veer left. Jump a fallen log and use another as a bridge across a creek bed. Duck a low-hanging holly branch.

Hear a twig snap. Freeze.

Meromi Riyal pulled her tricorder and checked ahead. Six humans, three of them children, making their way north by northwest. Strange. She knew why _she_ was out in the woods late at night: she needed some fresh air and exercise. Hardly a concern for people of this tech level, she knew, having used at least one primitive world as a hidey-hole in her arms dealer days.

That left people doing things that couldn't be done in the light of day. Illegal things.

Her kind of things.

But children, that put a twist on it. Not likely drugs or guns. Why, then?

All this passed through her mind in the space of half a second. Her curiosity piqued, she changed course and clambered up a thick conifer ahead of the group.

They came into view a couple moments later. Two men, one woman, three kids probably aged seven, eleven, and fourteen, all but one dressed in much-patched clothing, all dark-skinned.

"Keep moving, keep moving," the man in the lead, with better clothes, whispered to the group.

"We're gonna make it, right, Mister Smith?"

"We'll be fine, just a few more miles. Just gotta—" Meromi heard a sound to the south. It sounded like a targ yelping, but that couldn't be right—wrong planet. Whatever it was, the man named Smith clearly didn't like the sound of it. "Run!"

Meromi panned her tricorder in the direction of the noises. Two humans, two smaller mammals, heading this direction at a fast jog.

Meromi's mind clicked over. 1859. Earth. Dark-skinned humans. Tracking animals.

Slaves, and their hunters.

Her lips twisted into an angry, wordless snarl as she reached for the gun on her back.

The escaped slaves passed under her tree as she spotted lights panning through the underbrush. "There they are! After them!" a man's voice shouted. Two men and two targ-like animals came barreling out of the woods at a full run and Meromi dropped to the ground. The disruptor barked once and the reddish-brown animal in the lead violently exploded. The other leaped at her and she shoved the gun forward and slammed it into the animal's head. Its momentum bore her to the ground and she instinctively squeezed the trigger and it blew apart amidships. The jolt tore the weapon from her hand as one infuriated human reached for her.

A blast of pheromones confused him long enough for her to grab him around the neck with both ankles. She rolled for leverage and threw him hard sideways into his companion; something fell from the latter's hand. The Orion jumped to her feet, spun, and kicked, the durasteel toe of her boot connecting with the top of the second man's head as he scrabbled for his gun; she heard a wet slap like a hammer hitting a side of meat as his skull caved in. One down.

She heard a deafening bang and the sound of air ripping as the other man apparently pulled his gun and fired, but the shot was nowhere near her; she oriented on the noise and punched. Her small fist connected with flesh and bone and the man's head snapped sideways. Sidestep, grab gun arm, pull gun past, hammer-chop to the wrist and the revolver fell from her opponent's nerveless hand. A sharp kick to the groin and the man folded in half. As he fell against a tree she stomped his upper arm for good measure and as he shrieked in pain she reached around her back for her holdout and leveled a small Romulan-made pistol at his face. "What are you?" he wheezed.

"I'm complicated," she answered in her usual girlish voice, and shot him between the eyes.

* * *

><p>The Lethean lifted the tiny Orion clear off her feet and slammed her into the bulkhead, holding her there with one forearm. "What part of 'don't pollute the timeline' is so targ-fucking hard for you to understand, <em>Captain<em>?" Brokosh spat into her face, the horns on his nasal opening a hairsbreadth from her nose. Meromi kicked him in the shin and he grimaced but held on. "Don't try that again; you're not getting out of this one by fighting me."

"Let me down."

"Do you have _any_ idea of the kind of damage killing those men could do to history?" Brokosh didn't, either, but he wasn't letting on.

"Do _you_ have any idea what it's like to be a slave, _sir_?"

He stared at her face. It was carefully expressionless, almost like a Vulcan as was his flag captain's custom, but he could see naked rage blazing in her hazel eyes. He drew back and she dropped off the wall onto her feet, carefully straightened her tank top, and adjusted her jet-black ponytail. "You may not think it, General, but subconsciously you think we're all alike. All us Orions, we're all about controlling people with our pheromones. I was _fifteen_ when the Queen Bitch of the Syndicate took me and gave me to that disgusting Klingon as a housewarming gift."

"Who do you think you're talking to? I know _all_ about that, Meromi. You think I didn't do my research before I brought you onto the _MupwI'_?"

"You know it up here"—she tapped the side of her head—"but you don't grok it unless you've lived it. No true will of your own, no future, no _nothing_! I'm _still_ a slave! I may not be in danger of getting f*cked to death anymore but I can't leave the House of Chel'tok without a death mark from the Imperial Security Service! I don't _care_ what I did to the timeline because that's a family that won't have to live the life anymore, at least for a little while longer, and that's a win in my book."

"You want out? You're out. You've _been_ out since Old Man Chel'tok died—I put the paperwork through myself."

"You're missing the point, sir."

"Yeah, maybe I am. But what I know is, you just caused me one hell of a headache when we get back to the future. The present. Whatever the fuck noun I'm supposed to use."

In spite of herself, Meromi giggled a bit at her general's confusion. "How long before we can lift, sir?"

"Eight hours."

* * *

><p>The air ripped and distorted as the cloaked <em>Tor'Kaht<em>-class battlecruiser clawed its way skyward the next morning, aiming for the sun. "Reactor crystals?" Brokosh asked.

"Check," Ba'wov answered through the intercom.

"Disruptors?"

"Number Four needs a shipyard but the rest are up," Lieutenant Brax, the tactical officer, answered from his console.

"Torpedoes?"

"Rear is usable but the targeting sensors are fragged. Forward tube's a wreck."

"Damn. Shields?"

"Eighty percent capacity," Norigom answered.

"Hull integrity?"

"Spaceworthy but I wouldn't get into another firefight if I had my druthers."

"Cloaking device?"

"Leaky."

Brokosh groaned at the thought of the repair bills. Just when they'd finally gotten the House finances in the black again.

Then again, he could probably bill it to the Empire, given the source of the damage. "Are we at least in good enough shape to pull a warp slingshot?"

"I think—" Then the ship shook. "Ila'kshath, what—"

"_Chel Grett_, forty klicks out and closing!"

Brokosh grumbled, "Mother of—Helm! Full impulse! Get us to minimum safe distance and on course for the Sun! How can they see us? We're cloaked!"

"I clearly said it was leaky, General!" Norigom shot back.

"Rear guns!" Meromi barked.

"Turrets locked and firing!" Brax confirmed. The bridge shook again and the lights dimmed. "We can't take them out with just the turrets!"

"They're in pursuit!" Ila'kshath cried. "We can warp at anytime!"

"Set rear launcher for proximity detonation and fire a full spread! Engage!"

A salvo of torpedoes belched from the aft launcher as the _HoSbatlh_ swiveled on its axis and leapt into the distance, breaching the light barrier with more effort than it usually seemed to take. "Approaching maximum warp, sir," Meromi said to Brokosh.

"He following?"

"Yes, sir," Ila'kshath confirmed.

"Good," Brokosh said with a nasty grin. "Keep our speed just low enough that he can keep up, and get us onto course for a slingshot back to 2410."

"Here we go!" Faster than any mortal eye could ever hope to follow, two starships, trading blows, rocketed around the sun. "Comms! Open a channel!" The bekk at communications waved him on. "Any Starfleet vessel in the vicinity, this is IKS _HoSbatlh_, requesting assistance immediately!"

"IKS _HoSbatlh_," a Caitian-sounding voice answered, "this is the USS _Cathain_. Where the hell did you come from?"

"I'll explain later! Get this targ-fucker off our asses!"

"Change vector to two-oh-two by zero-five and drop to sublight. One _Avenger_-class battlecruiser, coming right up!" As the two combatants dropped out of their breakneck gallop a hailstorm of phaser fire and torpedoes blasted into the sickle-shaped Breen ship and tore it to fragments. The warp core blew a fraction of a second later, washing out all the screens.

"Damage report?" Meromi requested.

"Sir, I think it'd be easier for me to list what _isn't_ damaged," Norigom deadpanned.

"Well?"

The Nausicaan got up and went to the back of the bridge. "Two raktajinos." He inspected the output. "Well, the command deck food replicator works."

Brokosh cracked up.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> So the solar storm of 1859 was a predestination paradox.

I did a lot of research on the time period but I honestly don't know if the Underground Railroad really ran through Williamsport, PA.

While I was researching the events of 1859 for this story, I downloaded the PDF of a book on solar storms, _Storms from the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather_, from the National Academy Press website. The website asked me why I was downloading the book, and I replied, "Research for a _Star Trek_ fanfic involving time travel to Pennsylvania at the time of the 1859 solar storm."

I hope they'll understand.


End file.
